CodeSmith Generator 8.0 has Arrived!

We’ve added Visual Studio 2017, C# 6, VB 14, and .NET 4.7 support, and made using CodeSmith Generator in CI / build server scenarios super simple. Also, a number of NuGet packages have been added to make it much easier to use the CodeSmith Generator engine programmatically in your applications.

Many other improvements and bug fixes have also been made throughout the product. For detailed release notes, click here. To download Codesmith Generator 8.0, click here.

“This is the best version of CodeSmith Generator we’ve ever made!” – Eric J. Smith, Founder

Visual Studio 2017

Visual Studio 2017 support has been added and we have made many overall improvements to the Visual Studio integration as well. Visual Studio integration is now provided as a standalone VSIX installer which you can obtain from the Visual Studio Marketplace as well as directly from within Visual Studio.

C# 6 and VB 14

We’ve added editor support (IntelliSense) for both C# 6 and VB 14. This now allows you to easily leverage string interpolation, null conditionals, and other features inside your templates for increased productivity.

Generate On Build / MSBuild Support

The Generate On Build support for .csp files has been greatly simplified by changing it to use the CodeSmith.Generator.Task NuGet package instead of referencing a preinstalled MSBuild targets file that was included in your CodeSmith Generator installation.

So now you can just install the CodeSmith.Generator.Task NuGet package to enable Generate on Build support in your project. Also, when running CodeSmith Generator in Continuous Integration (CI) / build server scenarios you can set the Generator:License environment variable to your CodeSmith Generator Server license key. It’s that simple!

NOTE: If you are getting an error about a missing targets file, you’ll need to remove the old targets file reference from the project file. This can be done automatically for you by right clicking a .csp file in your project and toggling the Generate On Build option.

.NET 4.7

By upgrading to the latest version of the .NET Framework, we’re enabling you to use new APIs and libraries in your templates, as well as bringing improved features like High DPI support to our user interfaces.

Feedback Welcome!

As always, please let us know if you have any comments, questions, feedback, bug reports, etc. We’re listening.